Le Shouvre

Have you ever been so angry that your rage becomes all-consuming, preventing you from being able to function? If so, allow me to suggest to you a method for venting such paralyzing emotions: writing eloquent, sophisticated prose. That’s what the folks at Hot Rant do, with hilarious results.

I highly recommend jumping across to Hot Rant, and browsing through their catalogue of tirades. The themes for their anger vary, but the vast majority of the time it’s something that you’ve probably been enraged by as well. (Also, there is clear evidence of Hot Rant co-founder Fred’s love/hate relationship with terrible 80′s action films, but judge that as you may.)

Best of all, they love having guest contributions. My Wimbledon obsession has awakened in me a distaste for the British media, so I sat down the other night and channeled my indignation into a hot rant of my own, which you can read here.

So if you’ve got a fury that can’t be soothed, get writing…

http://hotrant.blogspot.com/

This isn’t really related to Le Shouvre, but the band Air have a new album coming out in October, and thus far all their website has on it is this – which has got to be one of the coolest animations I’ve seen in a long time.

It’s simple, I know, and not much happens, but it looks amazing. Very effective short; I find it hypnotic. I’d love to see them take that and turn it into a full-length music video, with the letters slowly morphing into different words, and the reflections changing to keep up with the song.

Awesome.

Well, after a slight hiatus, I’ve just finished the pair of espadrilles I’ve been working on. The design brief was for bright bricks/tiles, and some skulls. Caro found some shoes online that had a colourful skull & crossbones pattern, but not wanting to rip them off, I decided to take the same elements and go in a different direction with them.

All in all, I like the way the espadrilles turned out a lot; the colours make a nice contrast to the natural off-white of the canvas, and the skulls aren’t too realistic (that would be a bit weird), but also not too “fun” (so they don’t look stupid).

These are also the first pair that I’ve written “Le Shouvre” on, and incorporated into the overall design. In the past I’ve usually put a little cube somewhere in the design, but this time round I think the white speech bubbles work well amongst the rest of the design. In the future, I think I’m going to incorporate the brand name into the designs more, to link all the shoes together.

More pics here

Wimbledon started this week, and all the white clothes and green grass has inspired me. I want to design some tennis shoes – and who better to look to than the godfather of British Tennis (don’t laugh!), Fred Perry.

After a successful tennis career, Fred Perry invented the wristband, co-created his own fashion brand, and popularized the polo shirt. His brand has remained popular from its conception in the early 1950′s through to today. 

So, taking influence from classic Wimbledon images like the one above, and using Fred Perry’s own plain white plimsoles, I want to make a crisp, clean, summery design that makes you feel as though you’re setting foot in the All England Club itself… 

As for colours, it seems like the classic greens and purples of the Wimbledon emblem could work nicely – as well as a healthy dose of white, obviously. As yet these are “concept” shoes, but I’m going to start drafting designs soon and see how they look…

Le Shouvre has relocated to Paris for the summer!

After a long week of packing/moving, I’ve finally arrived in France, and can get back to business. There are several commissions coming up over the next week, including a pair of espadrilles, which should be fun. Also, we may start tweaking the site so that it’s more accessible for those who speak French…

Just a quick note to say that for the next few days Le Shouvre will be temporarily out of action, as I’m moving house. Many boxes have been filled, and today I have the unpleasant task of hauling them all across Edinburgh.

Work will recommence on Wednesday, once I’m in Paris. I may post again before then, but given that all my materials are packed up, I can’t do any painting, sadly.

I’ve just finished these, after stretching their creation out over the better part of a week. This time last year I made a pair for Anna, but we only had an afternoon to come up with a design, and our materials were limited, so the result was simple, if a little rudimentary.

This time round, however, I took my time. I’d been wanting to paint a paisley pattern onto a pair of shoes for a while, and Anna wanted something in the vain of certain ETRO clothing designs. The result is a design that is complex enough to remain interesting, but hopefully clear enough that it doesn’t look messy from a distance. Some of the best paisley patterns (in my opinion) are extremely intricate, but I think that sort of detail would be lost on a pair of shoes, as the colours would look too chaotic and unorganised when viewed from a distance (as shoes generally are).

The colour scheme is clear but soft; the aim was to complement the curves, and the overall feminine feel of the design. Also, the initials “AD” are placed in amongst the patterns.

And for a bit of fun, I added a fake ETRO logo on the heel of the left shoe, mirrored by an “ANNA” logo on the right.

Click here for more pics

http://twitter.com/leshouvre

That’s right, Le Shouvre has joined the twittersphere! Despite knowing almost no one on Twitter, and barely being able to use the site itself at this point, I have endeavored to set foot into the world of microblogging. As the wise Rafiki said, It is time.

So if, for whatever reason, you feel compelled to see mini updates of the shoe-designing process as I progress from one commission to the next, go check it out. Follow me, even…

I’ll try and figure out how to take pictures with my webcam and upload them to Twitter (sounds like it shouldn’t be too complicated, right?), so people can at least see work-in-progresses and various random sketches as they unfold.

The other day I finished up a pair of plimsoles for a friend, who had asked for something fun rather than artsy. So, I aimed for the shoe equivalent of a Hawaiian shirt: palm tree, beach, sunset… and a very red bird.

It was originally going to be a parrot, but after some thought I concluded that actually I don’t like parrots. Seriously, they’re really ugly, what with the huge hook beaks and tiny little eyes and such. Not a fan.

So, in its place, a bright red tropical bird that looks slightly more pleasing to the eye. Behind it, a trail of big red feathers progressively turn yellow and morph into palm leaves, which then ripen to a bold green, and become the very palms that nest the coconuts on the left shoe. I really like this fade progression, and two-dimensional pictures sadly don’t do it very much justice.

Also, the colours are far more vibrant in real life. For some reason my camera couldn’t capture the extent to which the cadmium red bird feathers, the deep orange sun, and the solid green palms stand out against the white canvas. I don’t like using flash when I photograph shoes, but I may have to try it out this time to more accurately show off the artwork. In the meantime, unfortunately, you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say that in person the shoes look much better than they do in the pictures!

Click here for more pics

“Bananaz”, the film that documents the Gorillaz phenomenon from its conception and through its consequent successes, was released on DVD on June 1st. But, for those who weren’t aware, the entire film is still available to view online through Babelgum. Definitely worth checking out for anyone who’s a fan – the music seems to get more emphasis than the artwork, but I suppose they were a band, after all.  Maybe its just the footage they ended up using (which spans 7 years), but Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett are both portrayed as completely bonkers, which makes it seem even more amazing that the whole project got off the ground in the first place, let alone that it achieved international popularity.

Not sure how much longer the film will remain online to stream – I remember hearing that it was only going to be for a month, but so far it’s been up since late April, so who knows.

Watch it here